1.5 million people help pass law protecting Argentinean forests

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Feature story - 23 November, 2007

The forests of Argentina are being cleared at a rate of 40 football fields every hour. To stop the destruction we took to the trees - and to the streets. While our activists protested in the forest, we joined forces with other environmental groups, got 1.5 million signatures of support and pushed through Argentina's first federal forest protection law.

The new law includes a nationwide one-year moratorium on
clearing of native forests - to avoid a rush of deforestation while
forest management regulations are put in place. After a year, any
jurisdiction still lacking regulations will continue to be
prohibited from issuing new logging and land clearing permits.

The Forest Law also establishes environmental impact studies and
public hearings - measures that will help protect forests where
indigenous people live and small scale farmers. To pay for
implementation, the law allocates funds from the national budget,
plus income from a new export tax on genetically engineered
soy.

"Without those 1,500,000 signatures and the thousands of phone
calls which the senators received, this law would never have been
approved," said Hernan Giardini, Forest Campaign Coordinator for
Greenpeace Argentina. "It is a real victory for the people and for
the entire country."

Now we are only waiting for the approval of Congress, which we
believe will happen before the end of the year.